For over a century trade secret law has protected internal business information from misappropriation by departing employees. Over this time, courts developed various limiting doctrines to minimize the impact of this broad protection on employee mobility in particular cases. However, the workplace has changed significantly over this time and these changes raise substantial questions as to whether there is any valid theoretical justification for continuing to protect routine business information under trade secret law. In an environment where the vast majority of trade secrets claims are against former employees, the lack of sound justification for protecting routine business information, the basis for many of these suits, suggests a reevaluation of the broad scope of protection trade secret law provides is warranted. This Article analyzes the protection of routine business information through the lens of the theoretical justifications typically applied to intellectual property systems, including consequentialist and deontological approaches. The Article concludes that consequentialist or utilitarian rationales likely do not justify trade secrets protection for routine business information, while deontological approaches might only provide a weak justification. Accordingly, a reevaluation of the scope of trade secret law may be warranted so that employees can feel confident in making rational career choices without facing the risk of a misappropriation claim against them by their former employer.
